Baster-kin swallows any remaining bile when he looks into the Layzin’s eyes; then he turns his own gaze to the floor and goes down on one knee. “Yes, Eminence,” he says quietly. “I beg forgiveness.”
The Layzin passes a generous hand over Baster-kin’s head. “Oh, no need, no need, my lord. Rise, I beg you. We are all near distraction, at the thought of the Bane reaching into the very heart of this city. I am sure Yantek Korsar will forgive us.”
Korsar, too, appears humbled by the Layzin’s words, for all his defiance. “Eminence, I would not wish to appear—”
“Of course not,” the Layzin replies, again full of compassion. “But there is more news, Yantek. The God-King has reached a momentous decision — one terrible in its nature, but righteous in its purpose.”
Korsar begins to nod, almost seeming to smile ever so slightly beneath the agèd grey whiskers, before he very carefully says, “He wishes the army of Broken, led by the Talons, to undertake the final destruction of the Bane tribe …”
The Layzin’s gentle, pronounced lips part, and his face fills with surprise and approval as he brings his hands swiftly together. “There, now, Baster-kin! Yantek Korsar’s loyalty makes the solution clear to him before ever I voice it. Yes, Yantek, such is the wish of our sacred ruler, and he directs me to charge you with its execution — although the involvement of the entire army hardly seems necessary. Sentek Arnem’s Talons should be more than adequate to the task.”
The Layzin clearly expects an enthusiastic response from the two soldiers — and is disturbed when neither displays one. Korsar stares down at his boots, shifting from one foot to the other uneasily, then tugs at his beard with his right hand in a similar fashion.
“Yantek …?” the Layzin asks, mystified.
But Korsar does not answer; instead, he lifts his head, apparently growing settled in his mind, and looks into Arnem’s bewildered eyes, his message so clear that, once again, no more than silent a reminder need accompany his speedy gaze: Remember what I told you — do not support me …
And then Korsar turns to the Layzin, putting his arms to his sides and inclining his head in deference once more. “I—” The words do not come easily, to one whose life has been obedience: “I fear that I must—disappoint Your Eminence.”
The proud smile that has lit the Layzin’s face disappears with disturbing abruptness. “I do not understand, Yantek.”
“With respect, Eminence,” Korsar says, steadying one trembling hand by gripping the pommel of his raiding sword† and grinding the tip of its long, straight sheath into the marble floor. “I suspect that you do. I suspect that Lord Baster-kin has already warned you of what my reaction to such a charge was likely to be.”
“I have?” the Merchant Lord asks, genuinely confused.
The Layzin glances quickly at Baster-kin, not at all pleased. “Yantek,” the Layzin says, in a hushed, deliberate manner, “you cannot refuse a commission from the God-King. You know this.”
“But I do refuse it, Eminence.” Sorrow and deep regret grip the yantek’s voice, just as his words tighten Arnem’s own chest. “Although it makes me sick at heart to say so …”
A hushed awe falls over the Sacristy, as all wait for the Layzin’s next words: “But this cannot be!” he finally cries, staggering back into a nearby chair. “Why, Yantek? Why should you refuse to fight the Bane, whom Kafra has made the very image of all that is unholy?”
Korsar grips the pommel of his sword hard enough to go white at the knuckles. Arnem, himself in the grip of emotions too profound to express, can see that his friend’s next statement will be his most cruciaclass="underline"
“It was not the golden god who created the Bane, Eminence.” Having made the break, Korsar can finally look up, strength returning to his voice: “It is we of Broken who must accept that responsibility.”
A sudden chill runs through Arnem, in part because of the words that he is hearing, and in part because of how closely they resemble words that he has already heard, this night:
“Visimar …”† the sentek whispers, not yet willing to admit that he has so recently encountered the man; nay, not the man: he was a blasphemous criminal, Arnem silently declares, a mage in his own right, one who, worse yet, was the primary acolyte of Caliphestros, Broken’s most infamous sorcerer. Visimar, who pilfered corpses for his master’s rites, and who allowed his own very form to be oftentimes transformed by his master, that he might enter Davon Wood unnoticed and fetch out strange animals and herbs and crystalline rocks, all to be used in the creation of evil charms. No, Arnem will not admit to the chance meeting — or was it chance? And if the dead do walk the streets of Broken, what reason can Arnem have to doubt the most chilling of Visimar’s prophecies:
“‘You shall hear lies in the Sacristy tonight, but not all the men who speak them will be liars. And it will be your task to determine who disgraces that holy chamber with falsehoods.”
Arnem turns away from the other men for a moment, clapping a hand to his forehead. “You cursed old fool, Visimar,” he murmurs inaudibly, as his blood races ever more rapidly. “How am I to determine such a thing?”
One separate conclusion the sentek has already reached, with terrible certainty: as punishment for what he has just said, Yantek Korsar will almost surely be exiled to Davon Wood, the effective death that is meted out to those who spread sedition. Precisely as Korsar himself predicted earlier in the evening, the old commander — the man who has ever been a father, not merely to Arnem, but to the army generally — will not see another sun set over Broken’s western walls. “Kafra’s stones,” Arnem curses helplessly, momentarily forgetting his surroundings. “Kafra’s bloody stones …” the sentek repeats, with the same soft desperation. “What is happening, this night …?”
The Layzin stands and, without deigning to look at either Korsar or Arnem again, quickly recrosses the walkway and ascends to his dais. Moving to its most distant point and throwing himself upon the sofa, he calls, “Baster-kin!” in a tone authoritative enough to make the strong-willed Merchant Lord turn about like a household servant. Then the Layzin orders the scribe who sits opposite him to stop recording what is said: an ominous act, and one Arnem has never before observed.
Starting toward the walkway, Baster-kin pauses to glare at the two commanders, whispering only, “I assured him, earlier, that this was not a possibility. You two had better prepare some explanation!” And then he spins again so quickly that both commanders are brushed by the swirling hem of his cloak, just before he marches up the walkway to face his much-displeased master.
Turning to Yantek Korsar, Arnem finds, for the first time, uncertainty in his old friend’s face; but it is an uncertainty that gives way to private amusement (remarkably ill-timed, Arnem thinks), and Korsar sighs an almost hateful laugh as he quietly pronounces:
“Clever. Yes, clever—my lord …”
Arnem would have an explanation, and will press Korsar for one, if he must; but just then there is a commotion to the rear of the chamber. The men of Baster-kin’s Guard are assuring someone that entry is forbidden — but whoever is on the other side is having none of this explanation.
“Linnet!” Baster-kin calls out from the dais, where he has gone into close conference with the Layzin. “What’s that unholy noise?”